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Only province can deal with transit

The Toronto Transit Corporation is extending a subway line into another city, Vaughan, north of Toronto. Peel Region buses penetrate Toronto to reach the Finch subway station while TTC buses invade Mississauga's Town Centre and Pearson Airport. GO trains and buses cross municipal boundaries everywhere. The QEW is a provincial highway until the Mississauga-Toronto border where it becomes the Gardiner Expressway, which is a Toronto road, a difference that cannot be seen without reading the signs.

What these examples show is that transportation in the GTA, including gridlock, is a responsibility shared by all local governments. But you would never know it from the municipal leaders and the news coverage. In Thursday's Star, an editorial criticizes Toronto Mayor Ford for blocking debate on new taxes while Mississauga Mayor McCallion declares no support for anything she sees as helping Toronto. Just whose problem is the GTA's gridlock to fix?

There is only one body that spans the GTA and that is the Ontario provincial government. For too long it has taken a low-key, non-confrontational approach to transit hoping for some kind of collegial magic to occur among the local governments. There is a mountain of evidence that this is not going to happen. The various mayors, councillors, chairs, and so on have had decades to fix the problem and have done little or nothing. The buck has now stopped at Queen's Park. It's time for the province to do its job and end the congestion in the GTA.

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